Rethinking The Affordable Housing Crisis, Part 4
Most zoning reform proponents – YIMBYs – argue that housing costs have ballooned because local governments haven’t allowed enough housing to be built. This might surprise some readers, but I actually agree with this point. The putative reason given by YIMBYs is that the kind of housing people want, housing units with walkable amenities and transit access, has been zoned out of existence. We’ve created a built environment based on specialized zoning districts served by automobiles. I’d agree with that also.
However, I see this as a limited perspective of our current unaffordability, founded on the recent experience of our nation’s large coastal metros and our booming Sun Belt centers. It’s short-sighted and doesn’t take in broader economic and social changes.
In parts 1-3 of this series, I’ve argued that housing has become less affordable for many reasons. The expansion of homeownership following World War II led to the creation of a new and powerful demographic – NIMBYs. Housing exuberance fueled growth and rising values in some areas, while destabilizing others. Segregation plays a major part in ensuring high housing values for some and denying it to others. America established a housing development, financing, construction and marketing infrastructure built to serve the two-parents-with-children, drive-to-work-in-a-central-business-district paradigm, and it was slow to respond to a society being remade with more single-person households, smaller household sizes, fewer children, a desire for more amenities.
We’re in a new era of development. We’ve reached a point where the previous development paradigm’s time has elapsed, and a new one has begun, whether we recognize it or not.
The “Big Theory”
That’s the premise of my "Big Theory" of American urban development. This was something I came up with in 2013 to describe and explain the ebbs and flows of development patterns in America. The “Big Theory” identifies and details development types over the decades. As I saw it, each era was centered on an economic or transportation model that fostered the kind of development to support it. I began by looking at American development patterns starting with the post-Revolutionary War era and continue through the present day. Here’s a succinct version of it:
The Early Era (1795-1860)
· Revolutionary Period (1795-1815)
· Plantation Period (1810-1830)
· Mercantile Period (1825-1845)
· Frontier Period (1840-1860)
The Industrial Era (1870-1935)
· Railroad Period (1870-1890)
· Industrial Period (1885-1905)
· Streetcar Period (1900-1920)
· Recreational/Garden City Period (1915-1935)
The Auto Era (1945-2010)
· Levittown Period (1945-1965)
· Split-Level Period (1960-1980)
· Edge City Period (1975-1995)
· McMansion Period (1990-2010)
It’s pretty easy to figure out. The Early Era thrived on development that served small early settlements, large-scale agriculture and small businesses. The Industrial Era was at first supported by rail, and then the automobile became involved. And of course, the Auto Era was one of complete auto dominance. The gist of it is something that’s pretty well known now. Before World War II there were different variations on walkable and/or transit-oriented development, and not so much of that in the postwar era (readers will also note that I end the 1945-2010 Auto Era as of 14 years ago; I still maintain that and will explain more later).
You’ll notice that I allowed for overlapping between various periods, but gaps between distinct eras. Split-level homes were being built when Levittown-style homes were still dominant in the early ‘60s. But as split-level homes became fashionable they became dominant in the following period. Yet both periods were single-family home dominant.
The broader eras are separated by gaps of discontinuity – interregnums – that signify periods of instability and transition before settling into a new system. The first interregnum was the 1860-1870 period that signaled the end of America’s adolescent years. That period is defined by the Civil War and its immediate aftermath. The second interregnum was the 1935-1945 period that came after America saw its rise and plateau as the world’s manufacturing center come to a close with the similarly unstable Great Depression and WWII years. The third was intended to be 2010-2020. (Note: if you want to see how I envisioned the rest of the 21st century’s development patterns playing out, please check out this first take I wrote in 2018, and this pandemic and climate change-informed take I wrote in 2021.)
Believe me, in 2013 I had no idea that 2010-2020 would be as destabilizing as it would be. I foresaw an end to sprawl model that came out of the Auto Era, but anyone could’ve seen that. I knew it would take time for the next development model to congeal. I think it has, we just haven’t recognized it as such yet.
Where we are today
I firmly believe that, as it relates to the Big Theory, the path to one era is created in a previous one. For example, the democratic ideals and capitalist economy established in America’s early years were the foundation of later industrial growth. Cities plagued by dirt and stench led many people to seek quieter and greener areas for living, served by a new and independent way to reach them.
The key reason I bring all this up is because I think many of today’s YIMBYs seem to believe that where our cities stand today is due to the urban revitalization movement of the 1990’s and 2000’s, and the housing collapse that followed it. That period from about 2007-2016, they would argue, saw little housing construction and set us on this path of high-priced housing.
I disagree. The urban revitalization movement had its roots in the rise of sprawl development during the Auto Era. And it started with people who saw value in the kind of mixed-use, walkable and transit-supported development that characterized our cities.
It began as soon as critiques of a sprawling and auto-oriented America were made. Post-WWII Beatniks rejected the dominant culture of the time and settled in urban neighborhoods that fit their outlook on life. Their perspective gained credence when books like Lewis Mumford’s The City in History and Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of American Cities embraced urban patterns and critiqued sprawl development upon their release in 1961. It began when people took notice of the impact of suburban sprawl, and the virtues of cities.
But it did not spread evenly across the country. I’d argue that Jacobs’ book was perhaps more of a defense of New York City than it was a call for more urbanism. But over time people saw aspects of things she highlighted in other cities, and that spawned a movement.
Urban pioneers created a new New York City in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Terms like “yuppie” and “DINKs” (Double Income, No Kids) became fashionable. Films like Desperately Seeking Susan and Wall Street showed something different about urban living. TV shows like Living Single and Friends brought more attention to the appeal. Personal dissatisfaction with suburbia led people to romanticize urban living, convincing many to give it a try.
Urban pioneering soon spread to other cities like Boston, DC, Chicago and San Francisco. Bohemianism had been around for a long time, but it was now gaining legitimacy and money. Intellectuals like Richard Florida demonstrated how changes within the American economy – the rise of the “creative class” – was changing our cities. That’s what fueled the much wider nationwide urban revitalization we saw in the ‘90s and ‘00s.
Yet we didn’t simply have local government planners that did not adapt to economic and lifestyle changes. We had a whole culture that failed to adapt. Financiers. Developers. Brokers. Homeowners. Corporations. Small businesses.
American life changed right around us, and the built environment didn’t keep pace. This is not the same as saying the nation hasn’t built enough housing.
Looking backward to move forward
An interesting and unique thing happened as the urban revitalization movement rose. The movement found its preferred development pattern in older spaces, not newly created ones. The walkable, transit-supported mixed use development model became valued again in many cities. This was unique as a feature in the eras I’d previously identified. Before, new eras ushered in new development types that supported the economic and transportation needs of the period. Generally they started as dense development patterns that steadily grew less dense over time. Early American cities established with dense inner neighborhood networks like New York, Philadelphia and Boston gave way to much less dense outer environs at their edges.
But those who initially rejected the sprawl model didn’t create a new and denser one right away (not until New Urbanists arrived in the ‘80s and ‘90s). They inhabited pre-WWII homes, apartment buildings, storefronts, and warehouses. They took an interest in historic preservation. They settled into previously discarded spaces and brought them back.
What did this mean for housing? It meant that older neighborhoods were rising in value, even as the inventory of such neighborhoods was declining (there was still wholesale demolitions of older neighborhoods taking place in cities). It meant that pre-WWII and post-WWII development were reaching a value equilibrium of sorts, even if our society wasn’t building anything like the pre-WWII neighborhood anymore.
I’ll pick up on this in the next entry of the series.